AftermathWorld War 2 PhotosPart 6

Contents

It was inevitable that photographic journalists in the closing days of the war and immediately after those years that they would create a treasury of pictures that would indelibly close its history. The contribution of the Associated Press to the photographic documentation of this era is incalculable. We have selected some of their subjects which mainly reflect justice served and retribution in the early post war years.

1945

June 9: General George Patton honored in San Francisco and would die in December in an auto accident.

July 15: Jewish survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp land in Haifa, Palestine evading British immigration restrictions.

September 11: American prisoners held by Japanese released.

September: The destruction of Yokohama.

November 5: Hermann Goering, mug shot, Central Registry, Paris, documenting war criminals held for trial. World War 1 flying ace and commanded Luftwaffe in World war 2. Held dominant positions in Nazi hierarchy.

December 1: German general faces American firing squad for ordering execution of 15 American prisoners.

1946

January 21: Fraternizing with former Japanese enemy. Charles Gorry

May 13: At Tokyo war crimes tribunal, seven death sentences were rendered.

May 25: Goering horde of pilfered art stolen from subjugated countries recovered by American army and later popularized in motion picture, The Monuments Men".

Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal: Goering upper right (gray suit) adjacent to Rudolph Hess, one time second in command of Nazi, Germany. Goering cheated death sentence by suicide and Hess died during his life sentence.

1974

Last Japanese holdout surrendered in the Philippines having spent 29 years in the jungle as guerrilla fighter. He was pardoned by President Ferdinand Marcos and repatriated to Japan.